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1/26/2019

Biopharma/Investing
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I don’t think Evenity will sell well. Aimovig might be a monster, though. More on Amgen very soon.

The web media layoffs remind us that there is no money in virtue signaling. Major media will get back to real news. The ‘fakeout’ caused by companies like Vice and Buzzfeed will retract and the CBS/ABC/NBCs of the world will realize ‘woke’ culture and uber-progressivism won’t pay the bills. People want the news, not preaching. Companies like Buzzfeed (hungry for a merger) are still upside down on cost structure and will go bankrupt. Startups, such as Gawker’s latest iteration, actually have a risk of imploding on their own smug, before they prove they’re not viable businesses, either. More 20-somethings will realize that their calling of ‘speaking truth to power’ (by trying to usurp power itself) is a distant second to operating profit. No operating profit, no whining about the benefits of socialism, sorry.

Clinical Trials I Noticed
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Drug Interaction Study Between Dorzagliatin and Empagliflozin. Hua Medicine Limited.
Drug Interaction Study Between Dorzagliatin and Sitagliptin. Hua Medicine Limited.
Hua is 2552 HK. It’s a true Chinese biotech with nothing but this glucokinase activator. But are you trading it? No, because it’s easy to go long some consensus stock and underperform.

Exploratory Study to Investigate the Bioactivity, Ocular and Systemic Safety, Tolerability and Pharmacokinetics Following Single and Multiple Intravitreal Administrations of KSI-301 in Subjects w/AMD, DME, and RVO. Kodiak Sciences.
KOD is a freshly public company worth around $300 million. A putative fourth entrant into the ocular VEGF space would be welcome, I think. This one is kind of interesting and worth watching IMO. No relation to Codiak, one of the more valuable private companies.

RUCONEST as a Therapeutic Strategy to Reduce the Incidence of Delayed Graft Function. Pharming Technologies.
Remember PHARM NA? Seems cheap, only around 4-5x sales and they seem to be focused on expanding Ruconest outside of HAE as soon as they can. Changes abound in the HAE space but there is usually therapeutic inertia, so they just might be okay. Worth watching this European stock.

ANAVEX2-73 for Treatment of Early Alzheimer’s Disease. Anavex Life Sciences Corp.
Remember these guys? AVXL, I think. They ran a SINGLE-ARM phase 2 and tried to make some efficacy claims. No joke. Better luck with a placebo-controlled study.

Papers I’ve Read
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Antitumor properties of RAF709, a highly selective and potent inhibitor of RAF kinase dimers, in tumors driven by mutant RAS or BRAF. Shao et al. Cancer Res 2018.
0.3-1.5nM doesn’t get Novartis out of the woods here, unfortunately, as other new RAF “dimer-inhibitors” like LY3009120 and lifiratenib show weak clinical data. The RAF monomer-inhibitor craze got started with Roche-Plexxikon (Plexxikon acquired by Daiichi in 2011 for $800 million) and Taflinar. All of these drugs have been underwhelming. The subtext is the main goal is to inhibit the “undruggable” RAS via RAF inhibition attenuating the downstream signal. With AMG510, a true RAS inhibitor with clinical activity has been advanced. Anyway, a slew of new drugs inhibiting both dimer and monomer formations of RAF were discovered. Here, the phase 1 demonstrated 2 PRs out of 75, all but ending the short life of what is now known as LXH254.

Martin, can you make an deep dive into Gilead. I think the new CEO will get the change. What are you thinking about it? Many clinical reports shows positiv changes in the HIV business. The transoition from TAF to TDF is very import but the free cashflow statements will be positiv, i think so that coud be a positiv investment over the next few months…Many thanks for your engagement.

Hey Martin, I was interested in a new feature on my site that has to do with financing and would love your advice and experience for feedback. I feel under-qualified to be allowed to solidify my idea. The URL is https://aperture.technology/online/demo

Don’t see why Kodiak is interesting. Patients in Roche’s LADDER study are going 6 months before getting refills on the PDS device while KSI-301 is claiming 100 days. Unless patients want to get more frequent eye injections instead of a refillable device put in I don’t see the value.